Lichtenburg Figures
by Servant of Fire
Summary: They expect Sherlock to be the one to chase after John, some panting desperate puppy, after he comes back. To their surprise, Sherlock hides himself in great shame from his electrocution scars. It's John, heartsick John, who unconditionally pursues his friendship again. No one wants it. They all warn against it. But John is determined to make his best man his best friend once more
1. Chapter 1

**Lichtenburg Figures: **

_**Note: "Lichtenburg figures" are scars made after a lightning strike**_

"I want you to meet me for tea…"John keeps the tears from his voice. The other voice, on the other end, cracks_defensive, posturing.

"What for?" Sherlock's voice. A voice meant breath. It meant he was alive. A beloved living human at the other end of this call.

John laughs. He bows his head to hide the silent tears falling down his face, gliding like razors to the pavement. A woman stops by the corner he is leaning against. A stranger floating smokey down the street, perched on a London curb, to see if he's alright. John smiles and waves at her. Smiling stranger waves and passes by again, smokes and ships.

He holds his chin a little higher now.

"What did we used to meet for tea for, mm? To talk about the case. Don't you have one?" John holds his breath. He will go on being this man's friend if it kills him. Sherlock simply doesn't understand it.

"I...Well, I_Yes." Sherlock falls silent again. Calculation betrays him. John sighs inwardly willingly this awkward tension away.

"Then meet me for tea. It won't kill you." John laughs to keep from screaming. Sherlock pauses. Calculation garottes him. John hears it. The sharp swallow_a circus performer and his sword.

"What time?" Sherlock is hastier now. Frantic. A broken reprehensible mock-up of the man he used to be. John doesn't care. He loved this man before. His brother before. He loved him no less now.

"As soon as you're free is nice, Sherlock, really." John rubs his nose.

"I'm...um...Across the street." Sherlock stumbles over himself embarrassed. No way that he could be across the street unless he'd traced this call on purpose and been following him for the last 30 minutes they'd been on the phone.

John looks up. There. On the windswept curb, the way the stranger had come and gone. Scarf tied much too tight. He shouldn't be wearing a scarf and long sleeves in summer, but he's trying to hide them. The scars.

John waves. Sherlock comes closer. He is biting his lip. Nervous. Guarded. Holding one arm. Trying to discreetly tug the scarlet sleeve down over the matching purple vines that were made by electrocution torture.

They are beautiful. John wants to tell him, but he doesn't know how. Like a majestic ivy growing down ivory_the skin and the scar and the scarlet. The picture of a living man garotted by awkwardness and the silken black scarf he's tied around his neck to hide the rest of the visible scarring.

There is one that he can't hide though. A little tear-shaped scar on his right cheek. That didn't come from the Lichtenburg figures. It came rather from the tool which Moriarty's men used to create them.

"Hi." John smiles. What else should he say?

"Hello." Sherlock frowns. That's a start.

"I invited. So, I'm buying." John nods over his shoulder.

Sherlock winces at the people within. This isn't the busiest cafe in London, but it has people nonetheless. People will stare. Someone will spread this. This the rumor that John Watson is visiting with that wretched creature Holmes again.

John smiles at Sherlock. Smiles broadly then to the rest of the cafe as if he is announcing his association with this wretched man to the whole of England. People see them and some of them snarl in disgust. Myopic little trolls.

John orders English Breakfast tea for both of them even though it is 2:30 in the afternoon. They sit on the patio under a bursting bush of roses. It's something from the cinema and John likes it.

Sherlock spreads a napkin over his hands to hide his scars and fend John from asking about them. John studies them, wishing he could examine them closely, a doctor's strange curiosity for the grotesque alerted.

"How are you?" John asks, taking Sherlock's hand,giving it a little shake as he lets the napkin slide to the ground.

Sherlock looks up in immense surprise.

"I-I...Oh, fine."

A thousand things hung by the nail of that one little "_fine_".


	2. Chapter 2

**Visitation **

They drink their tea. Mostly in silence. John prods a few questions about the case from Sherlock. He answers them mechanically, as if reading a script. Yet, he mostly dodges glances and keeps instead to his fancy new Samsung as he answers a god-awful load of texts from Mycroft. Evidently, the British government assigned this case.

"So...Where do you live now?" John swallows. It was an open invitation back to Baker Street. Sherlock might not know that yet.

Sherlock looks up. He bites his lip.

"I've been assigned rooms near St. Thomas hospital." Sherlock nods. He won't say what street. John bows his head. He understands that this means Sherlock must frequently visit the hospital. Decidedly not Bart's, then.

Would it not be easier to live with a physician? One that cared for him personally as an added bonus?

"Well, I still live on Baker Street. Mrs. Hudson saved your old room and still only charges me half. We were hoping you'd come back and help pay the light bill." John grins. Sherlock sets down his phone, finishing the last of his tea. His eyes dance. They scream. Shriek. Ache. He wants to. John knows he wants to.

"Not sure they will allow it, but thank you." Sherlock nods.

"Would you ask them?" John leans forward. Takes Sherlock's shoulder as he moves to get up. Sherlock's eyes go wider still. They plead. They sob. The lashes flutter_scattering moths drawn to the flame of John's compassion. He swallows.

"Uh, yeah. Okay." Sherlock nods. Smiles. As if asking to be dismissed.

John clutches a little tighter, noticing the little tremor that is rolling through him. Inwardly, John's heart is sinking. Only God and the British government are likely to know what sort of medical record he has accrued. How he wished that he could examine him for himself and help him through this.

"Sherlock?"

"Mm?" Sherlock and John stand up together. John has taken his hand again, in both of his now. Holds it firmly, rolled in a fist, to his heart.

"Sherlock, don't be a stranger, alright? Like, really, dying was bad enough, mm? Say you'll call on me every now and then?" John smiles, trying to keep up a good-natured front to his every evaporating patience. Sherlock smiles curtly, coldly, professionally.

"Oh, if they will allow it. They dictate a lot of my cases now, but...Perhaps when I resume helping Lestrade…"Sherlock nods.

"Right. However you like, but...You will call won't you?" John cringes at the non-committal nod.

Then, against every fiber of his person, John lets him go. He can see in his eyes that he wants to be let go of. This, being tethered here, it's hurting him too much.

"Thank you for...for the tea." Sherlock waves at the table. Then, he scoops up his phone and retreats.

"I love you, mate," John whispers in reply, watching him flee.


	3. Chapter 3

**Broken: **

The next time he saw him was one of those random instances that fate was fortunate to bring. It was Tescos. It was late afternoon. It was the streetcorner outside. He'd fallen. He was always falling, wasn't he?

"Sherlock!" John ran to his friend's side, forgetting all awkwardness between them. Sherlock's knees had given out. He'd dropped all the shopping.

"I_Ach! I...I'm...Alright. Hello. How are you?" Sherlock frantically reached shaking arms out for the shopping. The milk had burst everywhere. He kicked it.

John sucked his teeth. By now, more people were looking. He knelt next to Sherlock. Sherlock whose bags of flour were broken in his hands. For a moment, the flour represented life. John stared at it. At it slipping through his fingers.

"I-I solved the case and so...I was...going to make...supper...but. I don't know. Perhaps not eating has its disadvantages?" Sherlock frowned. John scooped up the shopping bag and all. The ruined pieces he threw in the trash. The other pieces he tucked under one arm and used the other to help Sherlock stand.

"Have you...Have you not eaten since we spoke last?" That had been a week ago. Sherlock looked up, puzzled, counting in his head.

"N..No?" He grimaced.

"Come on. You need to eat." John took Sherlock's arm.

"No, it's fine. I'll...I was heading that way. I'll eat there." Sherlock smiled.

John tilted his head.

"You won't will you? You don't ever cook because you don't know how do you? That's why you never do the shopping either." John had always wondered.

"I...Uh…"Sherlock scratched his hair. His hands were shaking. When he had fallen, his sleeve pushed up on the bag. He gasped. The horrible scar that John found so beautiful was visible, angry like a snakebite. He tried to pull his sleeve up viciously, but his face contorted. Only now did John realize that those scars must hurt to an ungodly degree.

"Please?" John extends tender hands as Sherlock fights, eyes now watering with the pain he's causing himself, with the sleeve. Sherlock stares at John as if he's landed from space when he takes his arm in the nest of his fingers. He handles it as if it was made of glass. Gently, fingering the rigid scar, he pulls the sleeve back down.

Sherlock's mouth pops open and closed, wanting to speak, but unable to for a moment.

John draws a sharp breath.

"I_I'm sure you don't want me to ask, so I won't. But I have to know one thing? Are they...are they looking after you well? Because...you know if you wanted my help I could examine them for you." John held his breath expecting Sherlock to rail on him. Sherlock looked like he could cry instead. His eyes were pleading for help. John knew then that he was broken more than he could have ever feared. The Sherlock before had a sword for a tongue. A two-edged sword laced in fire, doused only by the cool water of deduction.

"It's...It's fine. I'm fine. Thank you, John. You should...I probably shouldn't keep you from whatever you came here for." Sherlock turned to go.

"Sherlock, wait…"John called after his friend. Who turned on stumbling legs, hands quaking like a dancer now. He grimaced, a facial tick overtaking him. He was humiliated but stood there anyway, defiant, pretending the elephants did not charge across the room.

"You...you'll eat something, won't you?" John bit his lip. He really wanted to grab him and force him to come home with him, but that would do no good.

"I-I um...Alright…" Sherlock nodded and ran away. Simply ran. At full speed, legs shaking and sliding like figure skates all the way out of sight.

John forgot to do the shopping after. He wept into his hand the entire way back to his flat. That's when he realized that he still had Sherlock's shopping tucked under his arm.

"This might do the trick," John called Sherlock.


	4. Chapter 4

**Help: **

It rang three times. John took a sharp breath, waiting for the railing to come delayed.

"J-John?" The voice was panicked.

"I...I accidentally brought your shopping home. Remember I picked it up after you dropped it? I want to bring it back to you. Is there somewhere we...we could meet?" John held his breath.

"You...Could you come here?" Sherlock was suddenly desperate. Pleading. John felt his heart jump.

"Yeah, okay. Where is 'here'?" John held his breath.

"I-The flat...Near St. Thomas. I...I fell...And...Well, I'd come there. But I fell and I won't...I won't get up for a while. Sorry, this is probably not something people do. I mean, you live clean on the other side of town and...If it's too much trouble you can….you can keep those things. I won't mind." Sherlock's speech was slurring.

"No, I'll come to you. You'll need help!" John was already tearing out the door and hailing a cab.

"I...I never told you where...I live because I didn't want you to think you would...you would need to help me…"Sherlock slurred and coughed.

"Text me...Hey, are you listening? Text me your address?" John was in a commanding tone. He was about to start cursing. How had he not realized Sherlock was this sick?

Sherlock hung up in his head. But a few seconds later, a hastily typed, riddled with typos message, appeared on his phone with the address. John felt the time pass in a blur, trying to call Sherlock 3 more times.

He found him at the landing of the stairs. This flat may as well have been here since before London was erected around it. It was substandard, to say the least.

"Sherlock…"John knelt beside his friend. It took him half a moment to realize he was having a seizure.

John had barely begun to administer emergency care when it passed. Sherlock was crying now.

"You know they'll hang you...They always hang you...Get too close. This is more than a bit not good, John. It'll bury you and you don't want that. Go home now." Sherlock rolled onto his side and sobbed into his hands.

John laid down beside him and took his hands.

"Will you tell me how it happened? Who did this to you?" John kissed Sherlock's hands. Sherlock's eyes popped, surprised again. That John was being tender when he had expected his wrath upon his return still did not sit well with him.

"You know who…" Sherlock bowed his head, ashamed by his emotions.

"Please...Please tell me why then."

"You should know why."

"Humor me."

"You."

"What?"

"I agreed to it. An experiment. Until I solved...It doesn't matter."

"It does. Are you saying that...That I am the reason?" John felt like his stomach was being split open. He swallowed to keep from being sick.

Sherlock nodded once. Then, hoarsely_

"Yes."

Silence for a moment.

"Okay, Sherlock...Okay…"John ran his hands through Sherlock's hair. Sherlock gasped.

"I shouldn't ask. I want to. But_I shouldn't. I can't."

"I want you to. I want you to say it."

"Please, John."

"No, seriously. If you say it, we'll both do better…"John held Sherlock's chin for a moment. His bruised and bloodied chin from where he had slipped away and down from the stairs and from himself.

"I...I do need help. I need...I need your help." Sherlock bit his lip. Humiliated, to say the least.

John eased himself to his knees. He scooped Sherlock up then, tucked his arm around his shoulder, and all but carried him back into his shambles-of-a-flat.


	5. Chapter 5

**Counting droplets**

John held his breath counting the seconds. Sherlock hissed again. His heel had dug a trench into the linoleum. They had fallen here, in front of the fridge. They were always falling. They and this house, falling down around them. Suffocating.

John felt his eyes, ears prickling, threatening to burst, but never detonating. They built up like the pressure inside IEDs. He'd only felt like this once before. Once when he'd lost his head, a new recruit in Afghanistan.

He'd only done it once. Never again would he lose his way, his head. He had to be the one with a brain now. He was holding Sherlock around the trembling shoulders, leaned against his chest.

Sherlock gasped. A choke or an exhale sound mixing in confusion. Oceanic exhale followed. Pain barely suppressed. Pain so desperate. It was a body on fire, but not burning, Moses' bush to the flames of God.

"Alright. Hey, alright." John pressed his hand to Sherlock's heart and pushed him against his chest. He was afraid to let him go. To let him slip into this splitting floor. Sherlock hissed, legs coiling up, legs become serpents betraying his body, kneading and slithering on the floor. Pain enough to break a person. If this person still could break.

John let his hand wander to his coat pocket. He always had a few medical supplies hanging around him. Was there anything to mask or dull the pain of this gripping electric reminder?

Sherlock made a sound like a bird falling out of a storm. His hand shot out, reaching for the roof, the stars, the God that might show mercy. His hand came back down. Landed on John's knee. Twisted viciously in John's jeans, ripping the knee seam out a bit. He wadded the denim around his shaking fingers.

"Hey? It's alright." John let his hand wander the counter. He was fresh out of medicine. But, if he could push off the counter, he could push them away from the fridge. Maybe then, a bottle of water, or something with a cooler surface. Electrocution mostly caused painful burns. Water sometimes helped the pain of burns.

John's phone rang. His last girlfriend. Camille. He let it go to voicemail. He'd meant to let it go to text.

_Honestly, John, if you stood me up for that Holmes bloke! A bleeding parasite_You deserve each other! _

The receiver clicked. Echoed in the room.

Sherlock was too far from consciousness, orbiting himself, to have perceived that_or so John prayed. He wrenched away from the fridge. They landed against the counter instead. A hard thud against John's back. Sherlock gasped, the other hand shooting out, grappling John's other knee cap and ripping the denim from the seam. His clothes would look like a punk band mate soon if this kept up.

John ripped the fridge open. There was a single bottle of water in there. One with enough condensation to make this work, even if it wasn't all that cool.

"Hey…"John pushed Sherlock's hair off his face. Sherlock thrashed again as if this was a fight of sorts. John reached and unbuttoned his shirt, easing it down around his shoulders a bit. He'd have to free his knees of Sherlock's force grip hold on his jeans before he could pull the shirt's sleeves down and the shirt all the way off.

John counted the droplets. They bled slow, steady, as dew gathers to grass. Sherlock hissed the first time one droplet encountered the viney purpling shapes that were his scars.

After three, his grip let up a bit. John eased the shirt all the way off. Five droplets later, he poured some of the water onto the shirt and wrapped it back around the wound on Sherlock's wrists.

At first, Sherlock screamed. Hollow, a bird lost in the lightning that carved this enigma into him. John closed his eyes. This was the best he could do for him, for now.

But after a moment, the water had its way. Sherlock passed out, slouching over, all rigid and tin.

John eased out from behind him. He felt the gasp like a jolt through the top of his palate. Those scars were menacing. Sinister. Cruel. Beautiful, as only the damned can be.

"She's wrong, you know…We don't deserve each other. If you did this to...keep me out of it…"John held his mouth to keep from shrieking. Sherlock looked like he was sleeping now.

"I'm...I'm going to save you, yeah? Come on." John went for a sheet. The room's only bed. He made a litter of it and drug Sherlock to the couch. It took him 3 hours and a series of house methods to bring the pain levels down and get him to wake.

"John? That woman...on the phone. Maybe you should_" Sherlock blinked as John slipped another shirt over his shoulders.

"Shh...I won't leave here. I won't. Not until Mycroft gives permission and you can leave as well. This...No more of this. No more fighting your demons in the dark. We are going to fix this. Until it becomes a story only." John nodded. Then, he sat down on the end of the couch, putting Sherlock's feet in his lap to get them out of the way.

Sherlock blinked a few times, a bit perplexed. John switched on the telly set dismissively. It was a few moments of shopping network later, but Sherlock was asleep.

After which, John counted tears as droplets soft as sheep until he too fell back on the couch exhausted.


	6. Chapter 6

**Salvation **

In the end, Mycroft was not hard to persuade. John took Sherlock back to Baker Street, despite the ailing young detective's multiple protests.

Mrs. Hudson hugged him hard enough to break him. Had it not been for his coat, it would have been quite painful. John watched from a few feet away hoping that he would not need to intervene. The dear elder lady needn't know about the figures. Those were Sherlock's unhappy secret to keep.

All at once, and softly, a snowfall of events, Sherlock came to live again in Baker Street. He behaved for a moment as a guest. A refugee clinging upon salvation with the tips of his fingers. John watched in silence, pondering each day. One day it would need to break. He would need to fall apart again, and let it be for what it was.

One night, the rain fell. At first softly. The windows were flustered, leaves made of glass. Sherlock stared at the soft rain, fingering the scars that lingered on his arms through the fabric of his shirt. A black shirt now. Bought to be too long in the arms to almost completely hide his hands.

John watched him. Tracing, always tracing the path of great resistance electricity had taken through him. It was love, carved into the fabric of his skin, closer than the love of marriage, chiseled within divinity to the greater purpose of sacrifice.

The rain came down. Hard. Tsunami in a bottle shot through a small tube-like hole in the London fog. With it, bottled, lightning erupted. Volcanic in shape, angelic in spectrum. Lightning that rendered the man in the window white in an aura celestial.

To John's amazement, Sherlock did not shy away from electric currents that shook the whole of the flat like Olympus was leaping. Rather, he turned. Slowly, clothed in light. John held his breath. White light fell into darkness and left the traces of silver walking the room, the power shut off.

"Salvation."

John drew closer.

"What?"

"I thought it was killing me. But it wasn't...It was...Saving grace. To have fallen. To have been remade." Sherlock stood quiet in the dark for a moment. The rain screamed with the sorrow of Styx wrung from a dishcloth.

"You...you mean?" John laid his hand on Sherlock's wrist. Even in the dark, he could tell that he had pulled the sleeve up just enough to reveal the meandering infinity loops made of sheer power.

"I mean it was you. It was saving you that saved me, John. A currency I've no idea now how to spend or repay."

The lights came back on. Sherlock was smiling. Then, he dismissed himself, to some experiment or some case, John did not know.

He stood watching it rain now himself, wondering what Sherlock would do. What could anyone do in a place like that? Remade entirely. Reborn in the current.

John leaned into the light as another lightning bolt fell. Strange, it brought the room closer and the surging lights sang within ambiance.


	7. Chapter 7

**Sheet Music**

In that newfound sense of purpose, Sherlock fell away. He withdrew so deep into his mind palace as to at first be frightening. Yet then, it was intriguing. His mind fired in all-new ways, reimagined by the illness of his injuries, no longer hampered with the persona of arrogance he'd worn when he had been a social being. He would only emerge at night save on an urgent case. When he emerged, it was all at once. It was out of the choir room, out of the chorus, with a renewed sense of wonder and a deliberation.

In golden afternoons, when he was in the flat alone, he converted the sitting room into a massive lab for cases connected mathematically on end with other cases. A web of red strings that set the criminal lords of London in one connective web. They weaved the room like party streamers, photos of faces pinned to buttons hanging from the mesh. That was when the wall had no more room.

John was taking his lunch with a woman now. One called Charlotte. John felt that he would give Sherlock his space, just for a while. Just for long enough to see what would be birthed in solitude, in contemplation.

One afternoon, John came home from a date with Charlotte. The scent of fresh rain wafted downward to him. Sherlock had ascended with a storm that had passed before John emerged from his cab. The storm fell flat in the sitting room, cast about Sherlock's feet. John hurried in and was surrounded by rat sheets, a massive case spread on the wall. They flittered in the wind from a window.

Sherlock stood in the midst of them. In his hand a calligrapher's pen. John gasped. Sherlock's sleeves were rolled up to his elbows. The scars were exposed totally, spreading purple the fanning feathers of the parrots in flight. Sherlock held the pen to them, dripping ink.

When John drew closer, he realized what it was that he was doing. He felt his stomach rise on the wings of Monarchs. As butterflies were reborn, so was the memory of torment. It rose from the cocoon of scar tissue. Alive.

Sherlock was using the scars as stanzas. He was writing sheet music along them, composing a profound piece.

He laid the pen set down. Then, he lifted his violin to his chin again. He looked down at his arm for a moment, like someone does their watch.

All at once a mournful song tore through the flat. It fell on a rich note and droned_ the beekeeper's smoke. It rose and it fell and it twisted around. He had to bow, to hold his arm at an odd angle, so that he may play it and read it all at once. He was a dancer. Poised like punctuation. He was the maker of music as if this was his only purpose.

The song faded into silence, not yet continuing past a certain point.

John applauded.

"Well, that's something new. Honestly, the best you've yet written." John smiled.

"It helps me to think. This case, John. Complex, even for me." Sherlock paused in the music again and brandished the pen. John watched, transfixed.

"What...do you call it?" John swallowed. Sherlock looked up, a vague smirk teasing his lips.

"For John." He nodded. John felt the breath go from him.

Sherlock tilted his head, blinking again at the yawning abyss of the perceived obvious.

"It's the only logical name for it. The title was already inscribed on my body before ever the first note was. Now there are notes to match." Sherlock tilted his chin high, lifting the instrument again to rest beneath it. His eyes were closed now. The notes were just shapes, just place holders to cover. It was true. The music was written on his body. Embossed in electric sparks. Emblazoned on his soul. All of it. The Work, the Game, all of it...

All of it for John.

John sank into silence in his chair. The music swelled around them, cut them and stitched them together, burned them and birthed them. It breathed, it chirped, it roared, all at the twittering pace of compound scrolling Lichtenburg Figures. Their bond composed of Lichtenburg Figures with it…

"The cook! It's the cook, John! Why was that so profoundly hard to see from the first series of variables?! I am becoming profoundly nearsighted!" Sherlock was jostled from his music, propelled, arrow from string, back into the Work.


	8. Chapter 8

**Charlotte and her web**

John went to breakfast that morning, waiting for Charlotte. He truly liked her and thought that this would work. She never said what she did for a living, much beyond that she was a designer of some sort. She never said much about herself at all.

That bothered John. They'd been dating for a few weeks now. Maybe he should ask point-blank?

John opened a magazine, while he waited. He noticed the waitress give him a somber look and felt chilly. Why the stroke of sorrow in this sudden place? He was about to ask her how she was when he saw that the look was for him.

_**A Love Affair With a Mad Detective_by Charlotte Chase**_

In the byline photo, the girl John had been seeing. Beneath it a wild and crazed story about John's confessions. The raving ramble of a man who had been madly, dangerously in love with the frightening flatmate fraudulent detective who came back from government prison and was now an addict in his care.

Not a bit of it was true of course. Some of it was pieced together from little slips here and there that John might have made. Sherlock's favorite type of tea and occasional smoking habit were accurate. The rest was perjury.

John felt his blood boil to his nostrils, shot to his lips like Judas' kiss bounced back in his thought mirror. How had he dared to grow close to someone again, after all the tangled webs spun around his head before?

He wondered if Sherlock had seen this. He rushed outside, the magazine still in hand. It fell to the sidewalk, as unceremoniously as a leaf from the autumn wind. There Sherlock stood, on the sidewalk. Smoking in silence.

"You've seen it, I take it." John swallowed. Sherlock looked up, snuffing the cigar. John felt his stomach roll. He only turned to deathly habits when he had deadly things floating ghostly about the walls of the mind palace.

"There's no gentle way to say this. I'm leaving Baker Street." Sherlock tilted his chin. John drew back as if he'd punched him. He stammered. Sherlock held up the fragile fingers of his porcelain and ink scarred hand.

"Understand that I didn't come to this decision lightly...But this...This press leak...John, it could be fatally dangerous to you, if it keeps happening. I can't afford the risk." Sherlock indicates a bag at his arm.

"It's not like I've not been at risk before. Listen, Sherlock, I swear to God I never told her anything that she couldn't have found out on her own." John felt his stomach swim like dolphins to his ears. Sherlock nodded.

"I'm aware...All of it was painfully obtuse. The obvious twisted, braided into a showstopping fanfare. I understand, John. It's not your fault. It's the world. The world is cruel. You may fall on the swords of their smiles before the end. I won't allow it to happen because of me." Sherlock nodded, face pinched.

"This is ridiculous. What, and I can't stand for myself?! Sherlock, for God's sake. We need to sue her for libel and…"John's fists clenched and unclenched. Sherlock turned with a huff.

"Legally, I am dead. And soon...God help me, John. If I don't recover from what they did to me, I will be." Sherlock swallowed. John felt his body go cold.

"John, they would...They would come for you. Come for us both, if they thought that I...even if they only supposed that I was alive still. That I had survived...What was done." Sherlock shuddered. He reached out his hand and cupped John's face.

"You-you'll have to forgive me, but I...I wouldn't...I'd not be able to live with myself if you...If you met the same…"Sherlock looked at his hand. At his grotesquely scarred hand. He swallowed, lip trembling.

"You know I am going to come after you. Find a way to save you…" John swallowed.

"I know." Sherlock laughed. He lifted his head.

"Why is it always the saints and the saviors...crucified for the crime of being kind? You will suffer so much shame...And for what? For befriending a truly despicable man. A reclusive, substance addled soul that deserved none of your mercy." Sherlock swallowed back a sobbing laugh. John took Sherlock's wrist.

"This is ridiculous. Please, don't run off. We'd likely be safer together." John held his breath.

Sherlock shook his head.

"We have to make it look like we've broken ties. We have to...I...I will be within the city. Maybe someday, we'll pass each other on the street. Look me in my eyes. You interpret whether I truly want to do this. Believe me, I do not. Because they weren't wrong about one thing. You… I have cared deeply for you_obviously not in the way that they said but_since the day our paths crossed the first time." Sherlock pulled away.

"Friends protect people, Sherlock...Please, let me...return the favor once! Once, for the love of God, Sherlock!" John held out his shaking hand.

"And do what? Drag you further through the water and the wire that_!" Sherlock spun on his heel. He violently wadded his hand into a fist, nearly vomiting, shaking now, eyes darting away from John in shame. It took John a fraction of time to realize he was remembering something. He had nearly described what had been done to him, if only vaguely. He caught himself before he filled John's mind with something too horrible for either to entertain much further_Even though one had lived it.

"Oh...Oh my God." John burst into tears only able to imagine based on his physical reaction how dark that place had been. Sherlock shook his head.

"Listen to me! I can't. Please, John, I can't...Goodbye. Remember what I found your life worth, and think better of me." With that Sherlock was swept up into a bus, and was gone.

"You...Damn you...Damn it! Sherlock, God...I am going to save you. I am...Where the hell is Greg when I need him?" John pulled out his mobile, ready to set off in pursuit of fixing this.


	9. Chapter 9

**Negligence_**

They searched for him for 3 days. 3 solid days. Greg didn't ask questions. When he saw John's face, he knew what had caused this. He'd only barely begun to work with Sherlock again and had seen how fragile the situation was.

"None of it was true…"John began.

"Well, the bit about the smoking was. He smokes right in plain of public sight. But I can't imagine him saying even a fifth of that mushy crap she addded in." Greg sighed. They were sweeping all his old haunts this the last night. This was after they had searched for him in every drug hole they knew of, fearing that he in his pain would turn to his former vices.

"Greg…"John had just had the nastiest thought.

"Mm?" Greg turned to look at John. John gasped.

"He said...before he left. That he was legally dead. What if he...What if he went to the last ever place any of us would want to go to look for him?" John held his breath.

Greg knew, of course, exactly where John meant. Those last two years had nearly killed the two friends. Somberly, they went back there nonetheless. Back to the tomb of Sherlock Holmes.

A soft blue light adorned the graveyard, for mourners come this way in the evening. The twilight scattered her sparks over the green casting the sundial shadows off of every marker stone. John knew the path to Sherlock's grave blindly. Many a drunken night, he stumbled this way in the dark. Greg followed behind, picking a path more carefully. He'd only visited once or twice. He'd been too guilty to go back more.

They were sick to their stomach by what they found.

The magazine piece had attracted raving attention. Many impassioned readers had come this way. None of them knew Sherlock. They knew nothing of his lack of sentimental wants. So, they left extravagant roses and lilies and other manner of flowers. Enough to make a mattress of.

Sherlock was laying on his back in the flowers, his hand cast up above his head. As pale as death, cast in the blue light, he was Arthurian and it frightened them. It took them a moment of gawking to realize that he was fast asleep.

"What in Hell?" Greg pressed closer and shone a flashlight in Sherlock's eyes.

Sherlock muttered something unintelligible. John knelt beside him giving him a soft shake. He did not wake up.

"Oh my God…"John started a check of Sherlock's vitals. The young detective let out a soft groan. Flower petals stuck to his hair.

John laid Sherlock on his lap. There, in the dark, by the grave where he'd mourned him, he grieved in silence for a completely different reason.

"What's...What's wrong with him?" Greg was chewing his nails, fearing that he was high.

"Not like that, Greg...He's missed some of the medications he needs. Electrocution causes some brain activity similar to epilepsy, chronic breathing issues, and tremors….He takes 3 things to keep him from slipping into bad symptoms." John ran his hands through Sherlock's hair.

"He-He wants to keep us safe from him. That's why he ran. And an idiot too! He knows that without proper care, he will die...Die for real, Greg." John's tone was biting. Greg gasped back a sob of horror.

"He-He will?" Greg took John's hand.

"I won't sugar coat it for you…"John's voice had taken a new tenderness now.

"This can't happen again. We have to find a way to prevent it. Because...He almost certainly will die if he doesn't receive constant medical attention until he has made at least a semi long-term recovery." John shook his head. Sherlock would not come all the way to. He slurred their names.

"Do you...Do you honestly want to end up here?!" Greg grabbed Sherlock's chin.

"Hmm? Do you...You want this?! Eh? You must want this doing some stupid rubbish like taking off on your own and forgetting your medication, what?! You complete_utter_callous bastard!" Greg shook him.

"Didn'...Didn' forget...it...but...If...if I was to...To pass….Not be dangerous...Anymore. Not be a l-liability…. But you wouldn't want me to do it to myself. It would crush you...nearly did if I...if I did it myself... So...so...just letting nature…"Sherlock passed out.

Greg looked in smothering horror at John. John who sat completely stone-faced.

"Did...Did he...just?" Greg broke out into tears. He looked at John, fearful for a second. Expecting the man's temper to flare.

He hadn't expected John to scoop Sherlock up like one would a child and pull him close, laying his head on his shoulder.

"Not gonna happen on my watch, you stupid git…" John shook his head and closed his eyes. He drew a rattling breath, wind through ice-capped trees. Greg was crying into his fist now. John shook his head, fighting tears of his own, having put himself in charge of this situation.

"Don't be angry with him, Greg. He's not even thinking. He's not himself. It's the paranoia and peer preservation of the battlefield, you understand...He'll be okay. But he needs hospital, so let's take him there." John slid Sherlock up onto his shoulders and carried him thus the entire way back to Greg's patrol car.


	10. Chapter 10

"_**Fallen **_**by Sarah McLachlan"_ **

He woke up swathed in white, and his thought was that he'd died. There came a smile on his face to think the task was done. This was better. Nature won and now he rested there. Waiting there in death, in the soft cool silence, the peace of the forgotten.

Yet then, there are still those scrawling purple scars, with the faded shape notes scrawled along them. They are gilded in the sunlight. The sun that dripped golden and filled up his upturned palms with the wealth of the morning.

John stood in the window. The sun poured over him. Anointed him in the oil of pure daybreak_ benediction. He turned. His face caught in the celestial virtue that had given this morning wake.

"It doesn't seem fair, does it?" John asked. The silence in the room added volume to the obvious question. Sherlock could not muster his voice from his body_which feels as if it is made out of cotton.

"To keep you alive, when you're trying to die...Death is what you want isn't it, my dear friend?" John sank to the seat beside Sherlock and took his hands.

"You want it because you could feel it. The power of death and life...A choice, that, mm?

You had a choice for a moment, didn't you, Sherlock? To escape all of it. The responsibility, the memory...To make it someone else's problem for a while. It seemed like the right thing to do_Left you delirious, did it not?…"John fell quiet. His face was rife with sadness.

"Am I being cruel? Keeping you alive? Making you stay?" John shook his head, an incredulous look crossing all the highways of the lines of his face. So much stress there. A lifetime of incredulous expressions, searching for the answer to the war-torn world that he has seen. This is an answer that Sherlock can't give him, master of riddles or no.

"I_um…"Sherlock bit his lip. John was deeply upset, but he smiled with good spirits all the same. He pulled Sherlock's hands to his chest and laid them over his heart.

"It doesn't seem fair, does it? That there's still so much of the march of life here...When you are well and truly dead inside. Knowing that you gave all that made you alive inside to me…Saved me from worse than...Well, I don't know. From _worse_."John shook his head, breath sputtering like a candle going out in a sudden gush of storm.

Sherlock gasped, unsure what to say. John leaned closer. The sun bathed them both now. Hid them in her hand, in heaven's blind spot. John put his hand on Sherlock's chest.

"Tell me honestly. Do you want to die? Has it gone that far?" John held his breath.

"I_I…"

"Be honest. I won't hold it against you, right or wrong…"

"Well, no. And yes! It isn't...There is no simple solution to this problem. I want to live because I feel the need to protect you from the web my life subtly spun around you. And then...And yes...I do wish to die. I wish for death because..."Sherlock groaned. Why was this so hard to say?

John tilted the bed to a sitting position. He nodded, listening intently.

"I wish for death because I have fallen...Fallen into her trap, as it were. She stalks me...Death. She preys_ a lion, waiting in the brush. She waits for me, John. Death. So near my feet, so eager…"Sherlock's lips twisted in embarrassment.

"I wish for her because she is my familiar. Because it is easier to imagine death than something far worse now...Something far more frightening…"Sherlock clenched his teeth. John nodded.

"What's that?" John smiled, raising his eyebrows. Sherlock laced his shaking fingers around John's wrist and gasped.

"Healing. God_! God, it scares me. There seems no way to be redeemed from what I have become, John. From what I was before...I...Death. Utter transformation...or silence at the end of it. Death and her sting is easier to me than the yawning, open highway I need to take to be made whole…"Sherlock shook his head.

"Or was it that I have never been whole? That I filled the chasm of human conscious, of a heart's formation with you…? I told you once that you were terribly conducive of light on your own and I meant it. I don't think I saved your life. I think you loaned me a life force and I have merely given it back." Sherlock sank exhaustedly against the sheets, eyes like daggers as they stared up at John. John sighed.

"Is it torture, then? Is healing torture if I'm the one to try and guide you?" John bowed his head. Sherlock just stared.

"Why?"

Silence. John knew what the question was. _Why do you love me? Why do you stay? What does this mean?_

"I don't know...I've never known what it was exactly. It's just. It's just _you_, I suppose. Maybe Life needs Death to draw it out. Perhaps it was your lack of center that gives me purpose. Your empty that keeps me vibrant… So maybe, you can go on being a sneering hollow of a man, and I can go on filling the Void. If healing is too painful, then...I say let it be." John shrugged.

Sherlock looked out the window at the sun. Suddenly, he smiled.

"Seems fair. That is if you get me out of this bloody hospital…"


	11. Chapter 11

**Making~**

The Work resumed not long after that. Sherlock, once he started taking his medicine again, seemed to be on the mend. He even had most of his energy back and chased after criminals much the same as he once did. He only stayed winded longer after. John saw it as progress.

Yet for every balm the earth provides, there is always a fly to fall into it. That fly was Sergeant Donovan. No one knew exactly how she came by the information. If Sherlock's scars had become visible when he'd removed one of his thick leather gloves on a case where small items must be handled with bare fingers to properly deduce them. Perhaps it was the article John had submitted to the _Telegraph _correcting the libel that Charlotte Chase had printed. No one knew what exactly drew her interest. Donovan was intrigued, still far more vicious than before, to pry into the torture chamber that was Sherlock's mind and pick it for answers.

Her interrogation was several folded pages of human cruelty. It was the Hanoi Hilton. It was the ferocity of Cabanatuan. It was Sunday morning_ A church in the background shaken by a violent robbery where the choir had been held hostage. Sherlock knelt beside the altar, checking the floor for strands of wig hair. How he had deduced that the robbers were wearing wigs was not entirely clear to anyone. If anything, Sherlock's skills had actually sharpened since he'd been away. They marveled at this. He'd been stellar before but now he played in a League above what Scotland Yard could fathom.

So, perhaps it was jealousy when Donovan crept behind Sherlock on the floor. John had turned to talk to Anderson about a blacklight Sherlock requested. When he turned back, he saw Donovan with her Taser on a low setting. She was holding it close to Sherlock's ear, making his hair prickle up.

"Maybe you ought to use this, Freak. Draw the hair up off the floor…" Donovan gloated when Sherlock's whole body tensed, spring-like, mind immediately snapped back to a reality than no one in the room could totally fabricate in their imaginations_dark as some could dream.

"What...are you afraid of it, Freak? You? Afraid?...Thought you didn't have anything human in you." Donovan gasped. To which, Sherlock grabbed her wrist, spun her around his back and landed her by her collar and her hair on the altar face down. The whole investigation stopped, horrified by the sound her Taser made as it went off against the floor, by the little clucking noise she made out of the horror that he had reacted so spontaneously.

"Before God, Sergeant! Before God...In a church, and for the love of Christ! The church is not the place for this. A pity for you, that I am past caring, past saving_The lesson must still be learned." The room tensed.

"Sherlock, what-?" When Greg saw what Donovan had done he froze. It was his hair that was standing on end.

John felt his knees growing weak. He didn't realize the Father had caught him until he had to take him around the waist to keep him standing and several of the parish members had to hold him by the arms to keep him from flailing free, fury having burst his blood in so many different cells.

"Sherlock...Sherlock, please…"Donovan begged actually afraid of him now as he knelt closer to her, fingers constricting in her hair until he pulled her head up and made her look up at the Christian cross suspended over the scene like an emblem of cruelty and sacrifice. It was cruelty and sacrifice that had driven them to this moment.

"To answer you, once...Only once. I will never discuss this again with you_because it is none of your affair. No. No, I am not afraid of your pathetic Taser gun, Sergeant Donovan. I have been christened with constant voltage myself, baptized in currents." Sherlock ripped the glove from his free hand and rolled the sleeve down exposing welted, miserable Lichtenburg Figures, the purple velvet of the scars made so much more livid by the sudden shock he had received, by the gaping horror of the room.

"But to put to rest your constant moral dilemma...Your philosophic question that never yields to the more pressing matters of criminal investigation_which is the only relation we have to one another…" Sherlock forced Donovan to look at the scars on his hand. She tried to wrench free, but he twisted his hands in her hair like one might a horse's mane. She yelped and he nodded, head and neck tilted at a viperous angle that frightened even John.

"Look at me!" Sherlock's voice echoed off the pipe organ. One of the choir's ladies chirped near to tears. The room was anxious like bees and violins singing together. A pin could drop. Donovan looked defiantly into the cutting eyes.

"Do you think it was the first time? Do you think it was even the second, the third? Did you assume to know facts, know details, when you came to your conclusion? No one is born anything less than human, woman! Use your head for half a moment and not your petty wit...Freaks are not born, foolish girl! Freaks. Are_. Made_…" Sherlock let Donovan go with a fierce additional jerk. She fell backward off the altar and landed hard on her shoulders, panting, clutching at herself to make certain she was still intact.

Sherlock stomped the battery pack of her Taser so hard with one blow of his foot that it broke into several pieces. Then, he spun on Anderson vicious for a moment, face livid, gathering pales and reds all at once like a storm at twilight. Anderson jumped nearly dropping everything in his hands. They had seen Sherlock snarky, witty, rude, cold, hateful before. All of this was android though, and they realized they liked the stoic Sherlock much better. They had never seen his wrath before. For a moment, a picture, a glimpse of the savage world from which he'd come. A place none of them would ever care to visit.

"Fetch me the damned blacklight. Now!" Sherlock snapped his fingers. Anderson nodded, anything to comply with him, and ran back to his station.

Sherlock shook his head, wheeling away. For a moment he caught John and Greg's eyes. The look he gave them was so cold, so unlike him, that for a moment it seemed some demon had taken the form of their friend. But then, he knelt back to his work and minded his own business barely acknowledging Anderson as he brought him the device with shaking hands.

John excused himself, dove outside to the church's garden, and vomited in a trash receptacle. He stood there shaking, knees knocking until Greg came up behind him.

"It's...um...He solved the one bit. We have somewhere else we gotta be now. I couldn't keep up all the way." Greg's voice, shaking sheepish. John nodded.

"Okay. Yeah, okay…"John stood up and puffed, hands clenching and unclenching. Greg let a gasp and then he asked.

"Do you know? Do you know what they did to him to...That would...you know, make him...So...ehh…"Greg couldn't find words for what just happened.

"He won't tell me. Only says that he was protecting me somehow when it happened." John turned to face Greg.

"Oh...Oh my God…"Greg covered his mouth. John nodded.

"I'm...I'm in trouble, see. I've a dilemma. I want to know, but then...Then I don't. You see?"

"Yeah. Same…" Greg nodded. Sherlock swept outside then. He resumed almost all of his composure save his hand tremors had returned with violent noticeability.

"If the both of you are done with your schoolyard gossiping, then?" He snarked, the same old rude Sherlock they were used to. John looked at Greg. Greg looked at John.

"Okay, right. Lead the way, then." Greg shrugged. They three continued to pretend there were no elephants storming through here, wafting dust enough to bury them. Sherlock and John exchanged curt smiles and then they all fell instep as Sherlock again began to explain his deductions.

"The wigs were fabricated with a thick skull cap insert, treated with a wax, a Turkish brand. Only one factory in London uses that as a result of a direct supply chain agreement….It's near the Thames, two blocks removed…"


	12. Chapter 12

**Under control**

"Do we trust him anymore? I mean, can we trust him anymore, really? He practically assaulted her!" Anderson was clucking his tongue between his words. John was too numb to hear most of what he said.

"Oh, he assaulted her? Come now. She technically assaulted him first. You heard the Taser discharge. With the kind of injuries he already has, even an accident with it_ That_ that could've killed him!" Greg shook his head.

"You're defending him? Sir, she never put her hands on him. He, on the other hand, manhandled her quite a bit…" Anderson was ruffled. He snapped his collar, indignant.

"He sabotaged her attack and gripped her by her hair. Didn't even pull it all that hard really, if we consider the circumstances. I'm sure that's not as bad as what she nearly did to him. Are you going to make a case out of this? Leave it alone. She's like to have learned her lesson and should be leaving him alone now. I'm not even going to report it for both their sakes." Greg looked to John for help. But John was looking at Sherlock.

They were walking down the pier to the factory where Sherlock traced the church robbers. Sherlock was walking serpentine. At first, it wasn't noticeable, but then, his knees were shaking.

"Sherlock?" John called out to him, concerned. Then, he realized what Anderson was saying.

"He ought to be locked up...Asylum or something…Not that it would do any good. I thought they used shock therapy to fix the Bedlams. It clearly didn't work on him. "Anderson was oblivious to himself. Until Greg looked at him, appalled completely, face turned the color of mint leaves.

"Sherlock? Christ!" John rushed to Sherlock whose legs were giving out.

Sherlock turned around, gaining his footing.

"Therapy...That's what he said...Therapy!...How did? How did he know that? How did you know that?!" Sherlock pointed his finger at Anderson whose jaw clicked shut.

"You have to have heard something, seen something, saw something! How did you know that? It makes sense now… You...Raving on about things_complete idiot you are. Did the Master plant you then? All this while? Speak! The one variable I missed!" Sherlock's hands were vibrating now. He twisted on his legs like a marionnette spinning in a storm.

"What...are you on about?" Anderson shook his head.

"I've told no one. No one how they...How it was done. Or anything about it! But you...You said 'therapy'...That's what...That's what they called it. Called it my "therapy". How did you know?! What do you know?!" Sherlock's pointing hand clutched into a fist. John felt his stomach like a fish attempting to swim hot coals.

"He doesn't know anything...He doesn't. He's just some slobbering idiot who was running off at his head, unconcerned with the consequence of words." John took Sherlock's hands as they shook. It grounded him enough to snap at Greg.

"Lestrade! Keep your people under control, or I will take my expertise to a different investigative unit permanently_and I do mean that." Sherlock spun on his heel back to business.

By the time that they broke into the old factory, he was working like a machine gun. Firing off more deductions than any of them could keep up with. He started shouting at John to take shorthand. John complied, but he couldn't write fast enough. Finally, with shaking hands, Sherlock started taking down the notes himself. It looked more like a cardiograph than a notebook in a matter of seconds.

After a moment, they stared at him incredulous now. He was speaking pure Latin as if he was excorcizing something vile from his system. It took them a moment to realize he was reciting legal code, but with all the words in Latin. He was describing the exact nature of the crimes committed in this the secret lair of the thieves. Thieves who were absent.

"Sherlock, hey...Hey, could you...We can't keep up." John swallowed trying to keep his voice from triggering him further. If he suggested going home, that might set him off more. He thrived off of work after all.

Sherlock tore at his hair.

"Neither can I!" He was frantic now. Took off running. Hit his knees by the Thames, panting.

They all looked at each other without a clue. John at last was the one to go to his side.

"Are you….?"John knew not to ask if he was okay.

"Are you feeling faint?" John eventually asked and gingerly wrapped his arm around Sherlock's shoulders. Sherlock coughed. He coughed and then he wheezed. John discreetly pulled his inhaler form his coat pocket and made him breathe into it.

"Under control! I've got it...I've got it…"Sherlock wrapped his fingers in John's coat. John nodded.

"I know...You're doing pretty well too, given everything. I'm...I'm sorry I didn't prevent it from happening." John frowned. Sherlock lifted his eyes and attempted to smile at him.

Lestrade crept up behind them. Sherlock reached, scrambled for his inhaler again, wheezing and coughing, shaking doubled over. He took another puff of it and pushed it in John's hands so he'd not be tempted to reach for it more times than was healthy.

Then, on fawn-fragile legs, he lifted himself up. He faced Greg and gasped.

"This is the headquarters...They...They are dispersed throughout. If you watch the place, you will be able to arrest them at different times of the day. If you would like to arrest their contractors, it's an Irish tavern about 12 blocks from here called _County Well. _Some of the packaging on other effects were stained with an Irish beer that is only produced in London at that tavern." Sherlock nodded, at last translating all the jabber from before.

Greg's mouth opened and closed. Then, he burst into tears. Sherlock spluttered and looked to John in confusion. Greg wrapped his arms around Sherlock and pulled him as close as physically possible. Sherlock shivered at physical contact but let him.

"I...I am sorry…"Greg was shaking his head.

"Oh, um...Don't be upset, Graham...I...I didn't mean that I would truly leave your unit. I was just a bit...Annoyed." Sherlock puffed. Greg leaned back and took his face in shaking hands.

"My name is Greg, for God's sakes…"He held Sherlock's face carefully, shaking his head. Sherlock looked clueless and that made it worse.

"And you are a completely clueless person...For all your smarts...My God, son! What in Hell has the world done to you?" Greg shook his head. Sherlock sputtered, face crumbling into an expression a bit of shock first at the fact that Greg had called him "son" and then at the fact that he was actually genuinely concerned with his health.

"I...you understand that I...I can't…"Sherlock held his hand up. Greg let Sherlock go and nodded.

"Neither of you are to say a word about it...We're going for drinks after. If you can't drink because of your meds, you're coming anyway. We'll get you soda or something." Greg walked off then to wrap up this case, delegate watches and arrests, and various other things.

Sherlock looked at John. John shrugged.

"Well, you didn't expect every person who found out about it to be completely cold-blooded about it, did you?" John frowned.

"Actually, yes." Sherlock smirked. John shook his head and wrapped his arm around Sherlock's shoulders.

"Come on, back to it then." John looked over his shoulder at the river as it rolled yellow-faced behind them. Even England was sick at the stomach for this crime that kept on bleeding, this sacrificial gift that kept on giving.


	13. Chapter 13

**Reflection**

It was surprising to both Sherlock and John that Lestrade was the one who could not calm himself again when they went for drinks later. Sherlock had club soda_unable to drink alcohol anymore because of his medications. John had only one of whatever Lestrade was ordering one after the other of and he already felt a little bit drunk.

"Should you perhaps pace yourself, Detective Inspector?" Sherlock's noncommittal tone almost made John laugh. Almost. In other circumstances, the site of Sherlock squinting in massive boredom over his expensive smartphone would have been endearingly irritating.

"Now, now, now...I just got started. And you...Knackered you. Bless you, Sherlock, bless you. I've no idea how in bleeding hell you're not back on the drugs again." Greg was well and truly drunk now. John felt his heart sink to the soles of his shoes. This had been much harder on the policeman than either of his friends had realized. Sherlock laid his phone down.

"What are you on about?" Sherlock tilted his head to the side, completely confused.

"Oh, you know. All of that...Must be hard to cope with it. I know...It makes me physically hurt just looking...Damn it. I've been drinking/smoking...A lot since you've come back, you know. Afraid you're gonna die again. Don't think I could handle you dying...again. The first time I had to see...mm...I had to see a grief counselor, Sherlock. Young bloke like you...committing suicide. It was my fault too. My fault for listening to that damn Donovan, that damn Anderson." Lestrade burst into drunken tears and beat his fist on the table. Sherlock flinched then looked at John totally bewildered.

"Imitation is a cruel game. Their_Donovan and Anderson's that is_ sick pup way of forming flattery for each other. Lovers bonded over human suffering. Y-You were always broken and they knew it. Hell, it was gossiping about your infamous case that got them dating.

When I found you...What your father did to you as a boy...Locking you up in that-that place on those...those chemicals. That case, I'd never have solved it if not for you and you'd have never have gotten off the drugs had it not been for...For your solving and breaking up the criminal ring what even put Mycroft in the government…If it wasn't for Mycroft trying to earn your forgiveness, you might have even seen INTERPOL trial time over your citizen involvement in that big crime ring bust that brought us together, right? Damn Sherlock, you were, how even the hell old were you? You couldn't have been older than 24. You were practically a child. "Lestrade nearly fell off the table. John felt his hair stand on end. Sherlock looked over his shoulder, making certain no one other than John had heard that.

"Lestrade...That-that case is classified, remember? Enough that we had to make a cover-story first case that was actually our second together. Let's not talk about it here." Sherlock swallowed. To John's amazement, Sherlock reached tenderly for Greg's arm and took it in shaking fingers.

"When are we ever gonna talk about it? When are we ever gonna talk about any of it? You've always been closed fisted, closed-lipped about everything? Why can't you simply be honest with me, and keep out of trouble?! You know, I kept you around, not just because you were the best of the best but because you were my friend…Grew attached to you, you know? Grew "sentimental" over you. First day I met you, and what? I find you bleeding at the mouth, wrapped in barbwire, a complete smackhead then, beat to hell from some back alley hand-to-hand combat going after your father's people. If not for all your investigative notes, I'd have never known what you could do. Always on the verge of losing you. Then what do you do? Go off after Moriarty and get_and get_What the hell happened to you, anyway?!" Lestrade took Sherlock's wrists and slid his sleeves up a bit, fingering the scars with shaking hands. Sherlock swallowed.

"Please...I can't talk about that." Sherlock looked at John. John was amazed because Sherlock was actually so visibly distressed that he had tears forming in his eyes and a ring around his mouth that was green.

"Why the hell not?" Lestrade gave Sherlock's arms a shake.

"Because I physically cannot form the words to tell you, Greg…"Sherlock bit his lip.

"Did you just remember my/his name?" Greg and John gasped at the same time.

Sherlock frowned.

"I've always remembered your name. I just pretended I didn't know it so you would think I had no sentimental attachment to you. I thought...I thought it protected you from my...well being so myself." Sherlock shrugged. John gaped, feeling dizzy now.

"Damn it, that's no excuse...Why Sherlock? Why can't you be honest?" Lestrade was shivering now and made like he'd be sick.

"Alright, we...Sherlock, we need to leave this place? Take him home, then?" John stood up hands frantic. Sherlock, face crushed, swept Lestrade up under one of his arms. They eased him back to a cab. Then, they all went back to Greg's lonely flat in some obscure central-London neighborhood. He'd divorced his wife long ago and lived here alone ever since.

Lestrade stumbled in and snatched a cup of one of his counters and filled with sink water and drank it half, splashing the other half on his face. Sherlock and John stood awkwardly behind him waiting for him to speak.

"After all we've survived, and you-still with the mystery. "Sherlock Holmes" almost like...I don't know like a magazine character or somethin'. You know how many times I've watched you bleed, and fry your pretty brain. 5 whole years even before John came along...Never, ever could get you to so much as smile...He worked magic on you...You did really, really John you are an angel. Our lives were so miserable before." Lestrade staggered over to John pointing at him still.

"And as for you. Complete little bastard that you are! How are you alive? You were dead. Saw it on the bloody telly and everything. We buried you. Then, you come back, with all this scarring and all this...more mystery. Came back from the dead like something from cinema. And you still won't say a word about it. Where you were, what you did? Don't you think we deserve to know? There's a place in heaven for me and John for putting up with your constant waspish rudeness at any rate." Greg staggered, giving Sherlock a firm shake by his shoulders.

Sherlock bit his lip. Then, at last, he nodded.

"Alright...Alright. You both...I suppose you both do merit at least a fragmented explanation, but...Understand that...Some of it...If I told you would put your life at risk." Sherlock swallowed.

"Why's that?" Lestrade tilted his head.

"You won't like it…"Sherlock gritted his teeth.

"And since _when _have _you _ever cared what I like?!" Greg gasped, ripping Sherlock's sleeve up again and revealing the Lichtenburg Figures and the scars from his addiction. Sherlock winced.

"No, you...You see, I...It wasn't the most clever of my methods, but...This happened to save you. Save you both. Specifically, the both of you. Do you understand?" Sherlock looked like he was about to faint.

"Alright, hey...You two, let's sit...It's better if we sit." John led Sherlock and Greg to Greg's kitchen table.

They did. Greg immediately slapped his hands on the table.

"Alright, you'd better start talking."

Sherlock buried his face in his hands instead. Greg sputtered, surprised. John reached a hand to Sherlock's shoulders surprised when he flinched like he'd been stung.

"Right...Right, well…" Sherlock sat up.

"As terribly obvious as this will sound, I'm only alive because I didn't die. That is….the false suicide? It was actually a suicide. A sacrificial suicide that...That Mycroft intercepted at the eleventh hour…" Sherlock looked out the window as he spoke, fingering his scars.

"What do you mean it was sacrificial?" John piped up, throat feeling like a vacuum was collapsing it.

"I_I uh...That day on the phone. I wasn't going to...to do that in front of you. Make you watch but...But Moriarty had gunmen trained, one for you, one for our Inspector and one for Mrs. Hudson. The order was not to fire if I fell. The network had rules. And fall I did. I would have died. I would have. But Mycroft had been surveying the situation and broke my fall with the tools used in fire rescue, behind the ambulance station. He had it measured, from the place I was standing when I got ready to…"Sherlock looked down at his hands.

"Wait-so...so you died for us?" Greg's jaw dropped. The question hung in the room.

"Oh my God…"John's turn to get up and go to the sink.


End file.
